Bernardo Gutiérrez reading from his declaration of Texas’s independence (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
REBEL CAPTAIN AND VENGEFUL ROYALIST
For more than three hundreds years, Spain claimed a huge empire in America. At one time, it stretched from California to Texas to Florida in the north, and to Argentina and Chile in the south. However, by the mid-1820s that empire was almost completely gone. All that remained of it were Cuba and Puerto Rico, and even they were gone in less than one hundred years.
As the early centuries of the Spanish Empire in America passed, some colonists did not do as well as others, and these poorer folk became increasingly unhappy with Spain. A chain of events in Europe during the early 1800s, combined with long-term discontent in America, sowed seeds of revolution in New Spain (Mexico). That rebellion overflowed into Spanish Texas with deadly results, as you will see in looking at the lives of Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara and Joaquín de Arredondo. Their story is a mixture of courage, blood, loyalty, and brutality.
As mentioned, some Spanish colonists in America had not fared as well as others. Success depended partly on where colonists were born. Spain’s leaders believed that Spaniards born in Spain (peninsulares) were more reliable and more dependable than Spaniards born in Spain’s American colonies (criollos). So, after a while, peninsulares sent across the Atlantic Ocean held the highest positions in the government, in the church, and in the army. This seemed unfair to New World-born criollos who came to love their place of birth.
Even though they did not enjoy the same rights as European-born Spaniards, criollos could educate their children, own land, run businesses, and make money in America. But there were still others in Spanish society for whom life was much harder. Many of these people belonged to castas (mixed-race groups). Those people whose parents (or grandparents or great-grandparents) were Spaniard and Indian were called mestizos. Other people with Spanish and black parents were called mulatos. Still other people had Indian and black parents and were called zambos. And just as there were pure-blooded Spaniards in New Spain, there were pure-blooded Indians, as well as pure-blooded African Americans. All of Spanish America had black slavery, the same as the English colonies that became the United States.
Despite the fact that millions of people in New Spain were poor with little hope for a better life, they hardly thought about trying to become independent from Spain. In the past, Spain had shown that it was capable of dealing with rebels in a brutal manner. Punishment for traitors included cutting off their heads and carving their bodies into four parts.
As it turned out, it was events in faraway Europe, rather than in America, that actually triggered rebellion in New Spain. In 1808 the famous Napoleon Bonaparte of France forced the king of Spain, Charles IV, to give up his throne. At the same time, Napoleon captured Ferdinand VII, who was next in line to become king, and made him a prisoner in France.
Napoleon then made his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, ruler of Spain. This was not acceptable to Spaniards. Although Charles IV was not a good king, the people of Spain would never agree to a French ruler who was forced on them by Napoleon’s armies.
Most Spaniards loved Ferdinand, the son of Charles IV. They called him El Deseado (the Desired One), and they had high hopes that he would be become a much better ruler than his father. So on May 2, 1808, patriotic Spaniards in Madrid began what they called the Spanish War for Independence. This meant that they wanted independence from France and the right to choose their own king.
News of Charles IV’s retirement, of the capture of Ferdinand VII, and of the Spanish War for Independence reached New Spain in the summer of 1808. This led to a power struggle between peninsulares and criollos. The peninsulares said that they should continue to run Mexico, but in the name of Ferdinand VII. On the other hand, criollos saw this as a chance to increase their power. They insisted that New Spain should be governed by criollo committees (called juntas)—also in the name of El Deseado. Note that both groups claimed loyalty to Ferdinand but disagreed over who should run New Spain.
Within two years, this disagreement resulted in the first move toward Mexican independence, which was led by a criollo, Father Miguel Hidalgo. On September 16, 1810, Father Hidalgo issued his famous Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores). This call for rebellion was answered by hundreds of people from the lower classes, especially Indians and mestizos.
Father Miguel Hidalgo’s revolt of September 1810 moved northward out of Mexico and reached Texas on January 21, 1811. On that date, Juan Bautista de las Casas led a strike against royalists (supporters of the king) in San Antonio. Las Casas and his followers seized Manuel Salcedo, the governor of Texas, and his military staff on the following morning. Elsewhere, rebels took control of Nacogdoches and other places in Texas.
Unfortunately for the rebels, Las Casas made mistakes. He failed to build support among the people in San Antonio. This and other errors allowed royalists to quickly overthrow him. In fact, the Las Casas government lasted for only thirty-nine days. Royalists wanted to make an example of this rebel leader. After a brief trial in Coahuila, Las Casas was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. He was shot in the back as a traitor, and then his head was cut off. It was salted, boxed, and shipped to San Antonio, where it was placed on a pole in the military plaza. This was intended to serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of rebellion.
When captured, a similar fate awaited Father Miguel Hidalgo and his top three criollo officers. They were tried in Chihuahua City, convicted of treason, and likewise shot. After death, Spaniards cut the heads off the four bodies and shipped them south to the area where Hidalgo’s Grito de Dolores had started the revolt. The heads were placed on public display, where they hung in iron cages for ten years.
The trials and deaths of Hidalgo and Las Casas did not stop rebellion in Mexico or Texas. Another priest in Mexico, Father José María Morelos, took Hidalgo’s place as leader of the rebels in southern Mexico. In the north of Mexico, leadership fell to Bernardo Gutiérrez. Don Bernardo had family ties in Nuevo Santander dating back to when it was settled by José de Escandón.
Born at Revilla on August 20, 1774, Bernardo was the son of Santiago Gutiérrez de Lara and María Rosa de Uribe. Shortly before the century ended, he married a widowed cousin, María Josefa de Uribe, and they had five sons and a daughter. A blacksmith/businessman by trade, don Bernardo quickly answered Father Hidalgo’s Grito de Dolores.
Bernardo Gutiérrez’s first act as a rebel was to get his brother, Father Antonio Gutiérrez, to join the cause. The two men sent their agents throughout much of northern Mexico to convince others to throw off Spanish control. The success of their efforts was soon obvious, because hundreds of frightened royalists fled into Coahuila, where they felt safe.
Enjoying success in Nuevo Santander, the Gutiérrez brothers next turned their attention to Coahuila and Nuevo León. Once again they produced good results. Both provinces soon joined the rebellion. This meant that revolutionaries controlled much of northern New Spain from San Luis Potosí to Monterrey.
Father Antonio Gutiérrez then agreed to promote rebellion in towns as far north as the Río Grande. And again those efforts enjoyed so much success that in February 1811 the former governor of Nuevo Santander said that “revolution and terror raged in the settlements along the Río Grande.” By that time revolution had already swept into Texas, where it produced the short-lived victory of Juan Bautista de las Casas.
As noted, Las Casas was in control at San Antonio for only a little more than a month before royalists overthrew him. After holding the trial of Father Hidalgo and his criollo officers in Chihuahua City, Manuel Salcedo returned to San Antonio and resumed his governorship. By then, the faint hopes of rebels in the north of Mexico lay almost entirely in the hands of Bernardo Gutiérrez.
As royalists regained control of Texas and much of northern Mexico, don Bernardo believed that his best chance for success against them was to seek aid from the United States. With a fellow rebel named José Menchaca, Bernardo Gutiérrez left his family in Revilla and made the dangerous trip across Texas, which was controlled by Spaniards loyal to the king. Just before reaching United States soil at Natchitoches, the two men were attacked by either thieves or royalists. In making their escape, Menchaca and Gutiérrez lost “everything,” including the papers that identified them as agents for the Mexican rebels.
After spending a month in Louisiana, don Bernardo traveled overland to Washington. Reaching the capital on December 11, 1811, the rebel was favorably received by U.S. officials, including President James Madison. But in the end, Gutiérrez did not get the support he had hoped for. This “first unofficial representative from the Mexican people to the United States” received only the unofficial encouragement of Secretary of State James Monroe. The Mexican rebel needed much more than just good wishes.
U.S. officials had to be careful in their dealings with Gutiérrez, because they did not want to make Spain angry. They did give don Bernardo a letter of introduction to Governor William C. C. Claiborne in New Orleans. The rebel captain sailed from Philadelphia and reached New Orleans on March 23, where Claiborne introduced the former blacksmith to William Shaler. A special agent for the United States, Shaler was to watch over Gutiérrez and go with him to Natchitoches.
At Natchitoches, don Bernardo lost no time in preparing for an invasion of Texas. As it turned out, volunteers were easy to come by. One of the men eager to join him was Augustus William Magee, a West Point graduate and former artillery officer in the United States army.
William Shaler’s support caused other Americans to join the Mexican revolutionary movement. Gutiérrez also got the help of Samuel Davenport, an experienced Indian trader in Spanish Texas and successful merchant of Nacogdoches. That Americans were part of the quickly organized Bernardo Gutierrez-Augustus Magee expedition reveals the goals of the United States in Texas. U.S. officials wanted Texas if they could get it without risking war with Spain.
Calling themselves the “Republican Army of the North,” Gutiérrez and Magee crossed the Sabine River on August 8, 1812. Anglo-Americans had joined the movement “for reasons of land, loot, and adventure.” Don Bernardo, on the other hand, wanted to bring Texas into the camp of the Mexican revolutionaries, still fighting in the south under Father José María Morelos.
The Republican Army of perhaps 130 men soon swelled to around 300. As Gutiérrez and Magee headed inland in mid-September 1812, they learned that the presidio at La Bahía was poorly manned and marched directly to that outpost. The fort’s few defenders fled. This allowed the rebels to take a stone fort and capture two or three cannons.
Three days later, a royalist army arrived at La Bahía. It was led by Colonel Simón de Herrera and Governor Manuel de Salcedo, the youngest governor in Texas history. They opened a four-month siege to try to force the rebels to surrender. During this difficult period, Gutiérrez wavered in his desire to make Texas a part of an independent Mexican nation. Apparently he feared that the rebellion was doomed without outside help. Writing to William Shaler, don Bernardo offered Texas to the United States in return for military aid and protection. However, nothing came of the proposal. And Gutiérrez’s fears proved unfounded. In all armed clashes with the royalists, the Republican Army won.
Leadership of the Republican Army of the North changed in February 1813 when Augustus Magee died. Gutiérrez then took command of the rebel army, and new volunteers continued to join the revolutionaries. Some were Spaniards, deserting from Governor Salcedo’s army. Republican Army agents also managed to recruit Lipan and Tonkawa Indians as allies.
On February 19, 1813, Salcedo and Herrera gave up the hopeless siege and retreated to San Antonio. Two days later, the Republican Army marched on Béxar. To defend the capital of Texas, Colonel Herrera made a stand at Salado Creek, about eight miles southeast of San Antonio. In the resulting battle, a combined force of Anglo-Americans, Mexicans, and Indians soundly defeated the royalists. Although the fighting lasted no more than twenty minutes, 330 royalists were killed and 60 captured. The Republican Army lost only 6 men, with 26 wounded.
The defeated royalists left baggage, cannons, and supplies on the battlefield. These items fell into the hands of Gutiérrez and his officers. Don Bernardo then approached San Antonio and set up his headquarters at Mission Concepción. As Gutiérrez prepared to lay siege to the capital, several hundred men in San Antonio switched sides and joined the rebellion. This left Manuel de Salcedo and Simón de Herrera with little choice other than to surrender. The royalist officials asked for some promises from the rebel leaders. These included protection for the lives and property of innocent people, as well as protection of church property.
The reply from the Republican Army warned that only unconditional surrender (surrender with no terms set or promises made) would prevent an attack on San Antonio. On April 2, 1813, the governor and town council of Béxar surrendered. To celebrate their victory, a rebel honor guard raised the green flag of the first Republic of Texas over the military plaza at San Antonio.
Royalist soldiers were given a choice. They could enlist in the Republican Army or become prisoners. This offer, however, did not include Governor Salcedo, Colonel Herrera, or their officers. These men had no reason to hope for mercy. A mob demanding bloody revenge already moved through the streets of San Antonio. On the following day, April 3, 1813, a hasty trial brought the sentence of death for Salcedo, Herrera, and fifteen other officers. That verdict was as certain as night follows day.
Bernardo Gutiérrez may have tried to spare the Spanish officers by granting them pardons. More certain were the efforts of United States military officers who tried to save the prisoners. They wanted the royalist officers imprisoned far from Texas, perhaps on United States soil in New Orleans. Some of Gutiérrez’s aides seemed to agree.
The seventeen prisoners left Béxar under guard on the night of April 3. They were supposedly being taken to New Orleans, where they would be safe. The captives, with their hands tied behind their backs, were in the company of sixty Mexican soldiers. Captain Antonio Delgado was in command. At the site of the recent battle at Salado Creek, the defenseless Spaniards were unhorsed, humiliated, and attacked with knives. Governor Salcedo and his men died of stab wounds and slit throats! Their bodies were left where they fell and even denied decent burial until sometime later.
With the capture of San Antonio, Gutiérrez was in a position to determine the destiny of Texas. At this point, he began to act in a very independent manner. This upset his United States allies. Don Bernard made it clear that he would no longer consider any plans to annex (join) Texas to the United States. Instead, he intended to make Texas a part of Mexico. Not surprisingly, this hurt Gutiérrez’s relations with William Shaler and Governor William C. C. Claiborne, who had hoped Texas would join the United States.
In San Antonio on April 6, 1813, Gutiérrez announced a declaration of independence for Texas. His break with king and country began with the statement that “the bonds that kept us bound” to Spain had been broken forever. “We are free and independent and have the right to establish our own government.” It was a sin, he said, that in a province blessed with rich natural resources and fertile soil human beings should have to go about half-naked and half-starved.
Ignoring the role of Augustus Magee and others, Gutiérrez gave no credit to Anglo-Americans for their role in the victory of the Republican Army. Don Bernardo took all the glory for himself as liberator. He also named himself president-protector to head the government, but a special junta helped him draft a constitution.
Bernardo Gutiérrez reading from his declaration of Texas’s independence (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
Gutiérrez clearly intended for Texas to be free of all ties with the United States. Texas’s first constitution stated that it was to be part of a new Mexican nation. The writers of the constitution did give some reward to Americans who had joined the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition. Those who had served for at least six months were entitled to one square league of land (4,428 acres). A draft of the constitution of 1813, completed on April 17, was sent to Shaler and Claiborne, who were naturally most unhappy with it.
Five days later, Gutiérrez made an emotional appeal to faithful criollos. He reminded them that they had suffered under a European king. He begged his countrymen to realize that their cause, independence, was just. The mistreatment they had suffered under Spain was against all rights of free men. He also begged the people of San Antonio to “cast off” the burden of slavery and raise their voices against the evil peninsulares.
Although Gutiérrez and the junta were breaking away from Spain, Texas’s first constitution provided a government that was little different from what had existed before. The president-protector and his council made all decisions regarding government, war, and foreign relations, just as the Spanish king and his advisers had controlled those matters for centuries.
Gutiérrez knew that he had to have support in Mexico. He wrote to Ignacio Elizondo, a Spanish officer who had once supported Father Miguel Hidalgo but later changed his mind and again became a royalist. Elizondo replied that even if Gutiérrez were to hide in “hell itself,” he would seek him out, burn his body, and cast his ashes “to the four winds.”
Much worse lay ahead for Bernardo Gutiérrez than being threatened by a former royalist turned rebel turned royalist. The brutal murders of Governor Salcedo and his military officers had cut Spanish pride to the bone. Determined to have revenge on the Texas rebels was a no-nonsense military officer who would change the course of Texas history.
Joaquín de Arredondo was born in 1778 in Barcelona, Spain. His father was an important Spanish official who would later serve as governor of Cuba and as a viceroy in South America. Young Joaquín entered the military as a cadet in the mid-to-late 1780s. He must have been a good soldier, because he had reached the rank of colonel by 1810. In the following year, he became military commander at Tampico. His wife was Mexican-born Guadalupe del Moral.
Arredondo first showed his loyalty to Spain by crushing supporters of Father Hidalgo in the Tampico area, and he wanted to do even more. However, the viceroy of Mexico ordered him to stay out of northern Mexico. But things were about to change.
A tough general named Féliz María Calleja took office in Mexico City as the new viceroy in early 1813. Viceroy Calleja decided to name Joaquín de Arredondo as commandant general of the eastern interior provinces, which included Texas.
Arredondo, filled with self-confidence, wanted to take immediate action against the rebels in the north, but he needed Calleja’s permission. He warned the viceroy that José Ramón Díaz de Bustamante, the man then serving as governor of Nuevo León and Nuevo Santander, was a “do-nothing” official. He even said that to don José Ramón himself.
In March 1813, Arredondo informed Bustamante that he was going to enter Nuevo Santander and save it from the rebels, whether Bustamante liked it or not. The governor, who had served the Spanish crown for more than thirty years, reacted angrily. He informed don Joaquín that “I am … the only one responsible for Nuevo Santander.” Bustamante reminded the new commandant general that New Spain was being hit by rebels in the north and the south. Arredondo should stay where he was and defend San Luis Potosí, rather than messing in Bustamante’s territory.
The governor, however, was soon to change his mind. He learned that San Antonio had fallen to the Republican Army of the North, as well as details of the horrible murders at Salado Creek. In a panic, he sent a letter begging Arredondo to “fly to his rescue.”
Arredondo moved quickly. He sent mounted troops to Revilla to arrest the family of Bernardo Gutiérrez, but the rebel leader had anticipated this and wisely moved his relatives to San Antonio. Nevertheless, the Gutiérrez family suffered the loss of its house, library, and more than 4,200 pesos—all taken by the soldiers of the “cruel” Joaquín de Arredondo.
The commandant general then asked Calleja to lend him all the experienced soldiers the viceroy could spare. This plea brought results. As don Joaquín neared Laredo, he learned that a thousand Spanish troops had been sent to join his command. Arredondo also learned that hundreds of American volunteers in Texas had left San Antonio for Natchitoches. These men had deserted from the Republican Army of the North because they were sickened by the killings at Salado Creek and unhappy with Gutiérrez’s leadership.
Viceroy Calleja warned his new commandant general to avoid military action without the absolute certainty of victory. Don Joaquín assured his superior that he would exercise caution. Even so, at first things went badly for the royalists.
At Laredo, Arredondo learned that Ignacio Elizondo had enlisted some seven hundred men from Nuevo Vizcaya and Coahuila for the royalist cause. Don Ignacio needed to show that he could be trusted, and he asked for a chance to set up a forward base in Texas. Arredondo agreed but provided strict orders. Elizondo could go only to the Río Frío, not one step beyond. Don Ignacio, however, ignored these orders. He did not stop his march until he reached the outskirts of San Antonio.
When Arredondo learned that his officer had failed to follow orders, he flew into a black rage. If Elizondo were to capture Béxar, it would rob the commandant general of a victory that was to have been his. On the other hand, if don Ignacio failed, it would undo months of careful planning.
Arredondo’s fears that he might be denied a personal victory proved groundless. Things were bad among the rebels in San Antonio, but they put aside their differences when faced by a large royalist army.
Gutiérrez and Major Henry Perry threw together an effective fighting force, which quietly surrounded Elizondo’s troops on the night of June 19, 1813. The following morning, the rebels attacked don Ignacio’s men as they knelt for Catholic Mass. In the fierce battle of Alazán, which lasted for about two hours, the forces of Elizondo were defeated and scattered. Don Ignacio, who had two horses shot from under him, was lucky to escape with his life.
The victory at Alazán was the high point of Bernardo Gutiérrez’s leadership in Texas. From this point onward, he fades quickly from our story. Shaler and Claiborne were upset with Gutiérrez because he did not want Texas to be part of the United States. Thanks largely to their plotting, Gutiérrez was soon forced out as president-protector in San Antonio. He was followed in power by José Alvarez de Toledo, who had not served in the Republican Army but had been an officer in the Spanish navy. Toledo had come to Natchitoches, where he joined forces with William Shaler. The two men combined efforts to spread gossip about Gutiérrez and undercut his leadership.
Because of this anti-Gutiérrez campaign, most of the Republican Army at San Antonio began to desert in large numbers. This caused the junta there to replace don Bernardo with Toledo. On August 1, 1813, the ex-naval officer entered Béxar in a general’s uniform. He claimed authority from a popular government in Spain and from the U.S. Congress. Three days later, Toledo got the junta’s approval as commander in chief of the Republican Army of the North.
Meanwhile, Arredondo had recovered from Elizondo’s costly mistake. The commandant general left Laredo on July 26 and moved slowly toward a showdown battle with the Republican Army. By August 17, Arredondo had arrived at a location south of the Medina River.
While Arredondo was marching toward a fight with rebels in Texas, Toledo likewise had been preparing at San Antonio. On August 13 don José received word of the approaching royalist army. Some 1,400 Republican Army soldiers then left Béxar for a battle with royalists that would be the bloodiest in Texas history.
August 18, 1813, the day of the great battle at the Medina River, was like too many days in Texas summers. Dawn brought the promise of continuing, terrible heat. By early afternoon, with temperatures soaring, the Republican Army forces under Toledo and royalists under Arredondo clashed some twenty-five miles south of San Antonio. Arredondo opened the battle with a blast of artillery, followed by musket fire and a cavalry charge. The Republican Army fought bravely for almost four hours, and then the soldiers broke and ran—making themselves easy targets for royalist swords and lances. Perhaps 1,300 Republican Army soldiers, thirteen out of every fourteen, died in this battle or were shot as prisoners of war by Joaquín de Arredondo. San Antonio would soon suffer also at the hands of the Vengeful Royalist, also known as the Butcher of Béxar.
Later, in evaluating his great victory over the Republican Army, Arredondo gave little credit to the rebels’ Indian allies. He reported that the Indians were the first to run. Quick to follow the flight of the Native Americans was the cowardly Toledo, who escaped. Don Joaquín was only a little more favorable in his comments about the Anglo-Americans. He thought them capable in battle. However, the commandant general gave credit for their fighting qualities to lessons learned from Spanish traitors, who had been trained in the king’s army.
The 112 Republican Army soldiers who survived the battle and surrendered at the Medina River were all shot. On August 20, having captured 215 more rebels along the way and ordered the execution of “those deserving death,” Joaquín de Arredondo entered Béxar.
The killing continued. An additional forty men in San Antonio, believed to have helped the Republican Army cause, paid with their lives. The mothers, wives, and children of these men were packed into makeshift compounds (buildings), where eight of them died from lack of air. The survivors were left to cry out as shots rang out day after day, taking the lives of loved ones. Even today, the street that runs through this area of the Alamo City is named the Calle Doloroso (Street of Sorrows).
Joaquín de Arredondo deciding who will live and who will die at San Antonio (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
Younger and more attractive Bexareñas (women of Béxar) suffered both rude insults and physical assaults. These señoritas were also forced to work long hours in royalist barracks, where they ground corn to make tortillas. Mistreatment of these unlucky females ended after fifty-four days. At that time, they were cast into the streets of Béxar without homes and with nothing.
While Arredondo took lives at Béxar, Ignacio Elizondo advanced toward Nacogdoches. Along the way, he executed a total of seventy-one rebels, as well as capturing one hundred prisoners. These included women, along with their clothing and jewelry. However, don Ignacio never reached the East Texas town.
While camped on the Brazos River, a crazed lieutenant killed Elizondo’s cousin with his sword. Elizondo tried to disarm the officer, who slashed don Ignacio’s hand and fatally stabbed him in the stomach. Carried on a stretcher, Ignacio Elizondo died ten days later, probably of infection. He was buried on the banks of the San Marcos River.
In all, Commandant General Joaquín de Arredondo remained in Texas for only a few weeks. This was just long enough to direct the execution of Spain’s enemies and to complete his report to the viceroy on the battle of the Medina. As historian Félix D. Almaráz Jr. has written, the commandant general’s revenge “on Spanish Texas was swift and hard.” Taking people’s property, locking them up, and killing them were the means used to restore royalist control.
Over the next four years, five temporary governors followed the unlucky Manuel de Salcedo. In 1817 Antonio Martínez began a term that would be the last for Spanish governors of Texas. By 1821, Agustín de Iturbide, the third leader for Mexican independence, defeated Spanish forces in Mexico. On July 19 of that year, the Spanish flag—the flag of Castile and León—came down for the last time at San Antonio.
Governor Martínez, a good official and a decent human being, saw the curtain fall on the province where the king’s soldiers had “drained the resources of the country and laid their hands on everything that could sustain life.” In don Antonio’s own words, Texas had moved “at an amazing rate toward ruin and destruction.” It seems certain that Texas in 1821 had a non-Indian population of less than 3,000—fewer than the 3,103 reported in the first Spanish census of Texas, taken in 1777.
What about the lives of Gutiérrez and Arredondo after their Texas careers ended? When he was removed from power on August 6, 1813, Bernardo Gutiérrez left Béxar for Natchitoches. From there he went to New Orleans, where he tried without success to organize another independence effort for Texas. During his stay in Louisiana, don Bernardo claimed to have fought in the famous battle of New Orleans (1815) under the command of Andrew Jackson. Later, Gutiérrez returned to Natchitoches, where he joined a number of military expeditions. These included James Long’s unsuccessful attempts to conquer Texas in 1819 and 1821.
After achieving the independence of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide recognized Gutiérrez as a loyal Mexican. The former blacksmith returned to Revilla as a hero in 1824. In the next two years, he served as governor of Tamaulipas, as commandant general of the state, and as commandant general of the eastern interior provinces—the very position held earlier by his enemy, Joaquín de Arredondo.
After resigning as head of the eastern region in 1826, don Bernardo spent the rest of his life in Tamaulipas. He suffered from “the bitterness of poverty, political persecution, and broken health.” Gutiérrez was recalled to duty only two years before his death. At that time, he helped to defend his home state from efforts to separate it from Mexico as part of the Republic of the Río Grande. Captured, he was briefly put in prison by rebels and his home was looted. Weakened by these experiences, Bernardo Gutiérrez died at Villa Santiago on May 13, 1841, at the home of his daughter, María Eugenia.
One historian has come to some interesting conclusions about Gutiérrez. He was hot-tempered. He allowed, and maybe ordered, cruelty in the treatment of prisoners of war. A man of limited education and experience, he took himself too seriously.
On a positive note, it is well to remember that Gutiérrez had qualities as a leader that won him the approval of many Mexican and Anglo-American leaders. Even though he could not speak English and had no official papers, don Bernardo presented himself well to the highest officials in the United States. With only one exception, when his forces were under siege at La Bahía, he remained a firm supporter of making Texas part of an independent Mexico.
After Joaquín de Arredondo left Texas, his headquarters as Spanish commander of the eastern interior provinces was in Monterrey. In terestingly, while still serving as commandant general, Arredondo had to decide whether to grant Moses Austin’s request to bring three hundred Anglo-American families into Texas. Governor Antonio Martínez had referred this matter to his superior, and don Joaquín gave his approval to the petition on January 21, 1821. Arredondo insisted that the new colonists had to agree to an important condition. They must either be Catholics or promise “to become so, before they enter the Spanish territory.”
Within months, Agustín de Iturbide’s successful plan for Mexican independence swept Arredondo from power, but not without a last-minute suggestion from him. On July 3, 1821, don Joaquín offered to support the new nation on the condition that he remain in power as commandant general. This proposal was strongly rejected by the citizens of Saltillo. In the following month, Arredondo fled to San Luis Potosí. He stayed in safety there for several months by hiding in a Catholic monastery. Then, in December 1821, the former commandant general slipped out of Mexico through a small port, and traveled to Cuba on the ship Rosita. Infamous in Texas history as a “butcher” because of his brutal murder of Republican Army soldiers and supporters, Joaquín de Arredondo died in Havana in 1837.
Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara and Joaquín de Arredondo were notable men with opposite purposes in Texas’s late colonial era. The first was a Mexican patriot who refused to be a willing agent of Anglo-American expansion. His loyalty to Mexico helped lead to his removal as president-protector of Texas’s First Republic of 1813.
The second of these notable figures, Arredondo, was practical but vengeful. Determined to hold Texas in the Spanish Empire at all costs, the Vengeful Royalist killed rebel soldiers at the battle of the Medina River and Republican Army supporters at Béxar. Later in his career as a Spanish official, don Joaquín agreed to allow Anglo-Americans to settle in Texas. His decision had unexpected results.
While Texas was part of Mexico (1821–1836), Anglo-Americans became a majority of the settlers. On March 2, 1836, Anglo-Americans and their Tejano comrades issued a declaration of independence from Mexico. Then, almost a decade later, on December 29, 1845, Texas became part of the United States.
If Bernardo Gutiérrez and Joaquín de Arredondo had been alive in 1845, they both undoubtedly would have opposed Texas joining the United States. This might well have been the only time that these two men would have agreed on anything!
Materials used in preparing this chapter are described below. You can find more information about these sources in the Bibliography at the end of the book.
Good information on Gutiérrez and Arredondo may be found in Félix D. Almaráz Jr.’s Tragic Cavalier: Governor Manuel Salcedo of Texas, 1803–1813. Details on the Battle of the Medina are best presented in Ted Schwarz’s Forgotten Battlefield of the First Texas Revolution: The Battle of the Medina, August 18, 1813, edited and annotated by Robert H. Thonhoff. Biographical sketches of the two men may be found in Donald E. Chipman and Harriett Denise Joseph’s Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas.
Quotes in this chapter are from the following sources: Odie B. Faulk, The Last Years of Spanish Texas, 1778–1821; Nettie Lee Benson, editor and translator, “A Governor’s Report on Texas in 1809,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 71 (April 1968): 610; Julia K. Garrett, Green Flag over Texas: A Story of the Last Years of Spain in Texas; Kathryn Garrett, “The First Constitution of Texas, April 17, 1813,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 40 (April 1937): 293; Richard W. Gronet, “The United States and the Invasion of Texas,” The Americas 25 (January 1969): 293; Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519–1936, volume 6; Díaz de Bustamante to Joaquín de Arredondo (March 30, 1813), Center for American History (Austin), Operations of War, Hackett Transcripts; Félix D. Almaráz, Jr., Tragic Cavalier: Governor Manuel Salcedo of Texas, 1803–1813; David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico; and Elizabeth Howard West, “Diary of José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, 1811–1812,” part 1, American Historical Review 34 (October 1928): 61.